


Underwater Thunderheads

by tothewillofthepeople



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horse Racing, Cosette-centric, Established Relationship, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 06:37:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13405542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothewillofthepeople/pseuds/tothewillofthepeople
Summary: The air is tinged with salt, the sky is lightly gray, and Cosette feels November circling closer the way she can usually feel a thunderstorm. Something in the air. Something on her skin.(a scorpio races au)





	Underwater Thunderheads

**Author's Note:**

> yes, this is a les mis/scorpio races au.
> 
> if you haven’t read the scorpio races (WHICH YOU SHOULD), all you need to know is that the characters live on an island where the ocean is full of carnivorous horses (capaill uisce). the islanders capture these horses and ride them on the beach in a big race on the first of november. very dangerous because a) CARNIVOROUS HORSES and b) the horses are always trying to run right back into the ocean.
> 
> ENJOY

“I don’t want you watching the races this year.”

Cosette doesn’t say anything at first. She keeps her eyes fixed on the water.

She loves the ocean, fiercely and unhesitatingly, the way a drowning man loves the shore. These are her waves, just like this is her island. Born here and raised here, under three sets of hands. The waves, for all their movement, were her only constant when she was a child.

She ties her hair back more firmly and asks, “Why not?”

They have this conversation every year. November creeps closer, the sea begins spitting out horses, and Cosette’s father cautions her away from the beach.

“You don’t need to see that violence,” he says. He isn’t looking at her. He’s eating, and his gaze is fixed on his own hands. He’s practical and neat when they sit down to dinner and that doesn’t change here, as they share lunch on a bluff that overlooks the ocean.

“If you get hurt,” Cosette says, the way she says every year, “I want to know.”

“Knowing isn’t the same as seeing. I don’t want you anywhere near the beach.”

Usually she lapses into silence after this pronouncement. This year, though, Cosette is seventeen, and she feels brave with the wind in her hair. “Everyone I know goes to watch,” she argues. “I’m tired of staying at home by myself.”

“Cosette, please.”

“Papa, _please.”_

He takes another bite of bread, stalling, chewing slowly. The air is tinged with salt, the sky is lightly gray, and Cosette feels November circling closer the way she can usually feel a thunderstorm. Something in the air. Something on her skin.

Cosette’s father is a protective man, but a reasonable one. “Tell me why,” he says. “Give me one good reason to watch the race, other than fear.”

“Fear isn’t enough?”

“You don’t ever need to be afraid for me.”

“For my friends, then.” Cosette swallows. “I have friends who are racing.” She frowns mightily. “They’re _racing,_ and you won’t even let me _watch.”_

“Who do you know who’s racing?” he asks wearily.

“Marius’s friends,” she says. “He’s not, but some of his friends are. Bahorel and Enjolras, of course, they did last year, but it’s Courfeyrac and Feuilly’s first time…”

And she thinks to herself, _don’t mention Éponine._ And she doesn’t. The name is there, inside her mouth, smooth as a polished stone. But she doesn’t say it.

He takes another bite of bread.

“I still don’t want you near those horses,” he says.

At that moment, Cosette knows she’s won.

*

What Cosette’s father doesn’t know is that she’s seen the races every year. She sneaks to the top of the bluff to watch, to make sure he makes it to the end alive. He has his own horses, and every year he takes a glorious piebald named Champmathieu down to the water. He’s won a few times, too. Cosette knows that her father is very good. She also knows that nothing will save him from an unlucky year, an untamed horse, the too-strong call of the sea.

When they get back from their clifftop picnic Cosette begs a solitary walk into town to visit the bookstore. Her father agrees and goes to tend to his horses. As soon as he’s out of sight, Cosette runs down the road the opposite way, flying on salty air all the way to the Thenardier farm.

The path is beaten dirt, hard beneath her boots and solid enough that Cosette feels like she has to stomp with every step just to make an impression. The wind is wild and it smells like October, which is perhaps Cosette’s favorite month. She loves the gray ocean, she loves the light brown boughs of the trees against the sky, she loves the little yellow honey-locust leaves that tangle in the grass and get tracked inside the house every time she or her father enters. She loves the wildness, too, the anticipation and the call of the horses on the beach. Perhaps the danger should frighten her. Cosette has never been as soft as her father thinks she should be, though. She knots her fingers in the hem of her skirt so she can climb over the fence to the Thenardier farm and walk up the path.

Éponine is in the barn. Cosette sneaks in to find her without anyone seeing her but Azelma, who waves but doesn’t call out, lest her father is near.

Cosette doesn’t shy away from the piercing stare of the horses as she walks past. Wariness is smart, here, but they don’t frighten her the way they used to.

Her father has never let her enter their barn when they’re housing any _capaill uisce,_ as determined as ever to keep her from them, so he probably would have a heart attack if he ever saw her walking easily through the Thenardier’s barn, surrounded by _capaill._ Or if he saw her here at all, horses be damned.

He doesn’t need to know.

Éponine hears her footsteps and turns around. She’s standing in front of Jondrette’s stall, staring him down, but at Cosette’s approach Éponine turns and reaches out her hand. Cosette takes it and steps close enough to press a kiss to Éponine’s temple, right where her feathery hair is shortest.

Her father doesn’t need to know this either.

“I didn’t know you were coming today,” Éponine says. “I was just about to take him out for a ride.”

“Can I come?”

“Look at you, all eager,” Éponine teases.

Cosette knocks their shoulders together. “I talked to my father,” she says. 

“Oh?”

“He’s letting me watch the races.”

Éponine grins. “He’s letting you down on the beach with the rest of the grown-ups?”

“Don’t mock me,” Cosette entreats. “I’m glad I don’t have to lie about it anymore.”

Éponine keeps her smile but she turns her eyes back to Jondrette. “It’s different down there,” she says. “Harsher. The water is so much closer.”

“I’ve been on the beach before.”

“Never on the first of November.” Éponine’s gaze is turning haunted. She watches Jondrette like she’s waiting for him to kill her. “The horses are wilder, the air feels colder. And the men drink much more than usual.” She shudders, just once.

Cosette presses her knuckles to the back of Éponine’s hand. “I want to watch you race,” she says.

“So you will,” Éponine replies. “Want to go for a ride?”

*

(“I’m too old to learn how to do that,” Cosette had told Éponine once, when Éponine offered to let her on a _capall._

Éponine had stared back with a furrowed brow. “Who says there’s an age limit?”

“It’s not—I don’t mean—look,” Cosette had said, desperate to articulate a feeling she barely understood. “You ride like you were born doing it, because you almost were. I’ll never ride like that. Like it’s natural.” She waved a hand at Éponine, trying to encompass all of her. “Like it’s vital.”

“That doesn’t come from riding since childhood,” Éponine had replied. “That comes from loving it like you’ve never loved anything.”

“Well,” Cosette had said. “Well.” She had hesitated. Shifted her weight from one foot to the other, feeling ridiculous in her neat dress and nice leather boots. 

And Éponine, still leaning against a tree in the shade where they were talking, had cocked one eyebrow and asked, “Do you want me to teach you?”)

*

Jondrette is like a stormcloud. They ride out to the cliffs together with Cosette tucked in front of Éponine on the _capall’s_ back, pressed together like a single rider. The wind is clear and overwhelming in Cosette’s face and she opens her mouth, trying to catch all of it. She’s grateful that she thought to braid her hair, otherwise it would be whipping Éponine in the face.

“Give him his head!” she cries, and she can feel Éponine laughing.

“He’ll go running straight for the cliffs,” Éponine yells in her ear in reply. “I trust him, but not that much.”

She urges him faster, though, and Cosette throws out one arm, trying to be a bird. She has faith that Éponine will keep her from being pitched out of the saddle, but _capaill_ are volatile enough that she won’t let go of Jondrette completely.

Éponine pulls him to a halt far from the cliff’s edge, and she and Cosette climb down to walk through the tall grass. Cosette likes to pick the wildflowers, and Éponine knows this well enough that she doesn’t need to ask, just strolls along behind her with a warning hand on Jondrette’s bridle. 

His nostrils flare when the smell of salt rises up on the breeze. Éponine has had him for years—Cosette will never forget the grudgingly respectful gossip that she earned, pulling the thing out of the water with her father when she was only fourteen—but this will be her first year racing with him. He almost seems to know it. Skittish isn’t the right word, but there’s an energy about him that’s new.

“Will he bite if I try to put flowers in his mane?” Cosette calls. She has a whole armful of daisies and aspirations for a crown, but Jondrette would look sweet with petals around his ears.

But Éponine laughs. “He might.”

“And what about you?” Cosette asks, drawing closer.

Éponine raises one eyebrow. “What _about_ me?”

“Will you bite if I put flowers in your hair?”

The expression on Éponine’s face turns sharp and teasing. “Only if you ask nicely.”

Cosette smiles. 

They walk back to the Thenardier’s together, Éponine leading Jondrette on foot so he can cool down, Cosette on her other side dropping daisy petals with every step. The wind whips their hair back from their faces and makes Cosette’s petals spin away as soon as they leave her fingers. “My father will be expecting me at home soon,” she says.

“I figured.”

Cosette shifts her armful of daisies to one arm. With the other, she reaches out and sets her hand in the crook of Éponine’s elbow. Just to be close to her, without interfering with the hold Éponine has on Jondrette’s tether.

Éponine’s smile is small but sweet. Cosette turns her face back to the wind and starts to whistle.

*

A few days later Cosette goes into town with her father, so he can talk with the other riders and they can buy bread. She is standing in front of the bakery, waiting for her father, when she sees Marius Pontmercy appear in the doorway of the bookshop. He turns his face up to the sky and takes a deep breath.

Cosette goes over to him. “Hello, Marius,” she calls, and he jumps.

Marius is one of the few men on the island who seems to have no interest in riding horses, or selling them, or indeed being anywhere near them. His grandfather was a racing champion when he was young; he won the Scorpio Races a staggering four times. Marius, however, of a nervous disposition and more interesting in reading than racing, can often be found as far away from the beach as possible on the first of November. 

He is a colossal disappointment to his grandfather, and everyone in the town knows it. It makes him as skittish as a colt.

“Hello, Cosette,” he says, stepping into the street to join her. “How have you been?”

Cosette fancied herself a little bit in love with Marius when she was younger, but the infatuation was short-lived, as both of them discovered upon growing that their inclinations lay elsewhere. “I’ve been well,” she says, almost giving a little skip. “My father says I can go watch the race this year!”

Marius grins a little and steps closer to speak in a lower voice. “That won’t change much, will it, you’ve been watching them every year,” he teases.

She swats at his arm. “From the beach,” she clarifies. “Will you come with me?”

His smile fades a little and he reaches up to tug at his hair. “I don’t know…”

“I don’t want to be by myself,” she says. She knows that some men find the races only worth watching when drunk, and neither her father nor Éponine will be able to keep her company. She isn’t afraid of any of the men on the island, but even so. The beach is not a safe place to go alone. Men, horses, water; all very volatile. 

“As long as I’m not dragging you right out of the surf,” he says with a sigh. “How did you convince your father?”

“I told him I had friends racing, and it was ridiculous of him to not even let me watch,” she explains, leaning against the doorframe of the bookstore. She gives Marius a smile. “I’m sure Courfeyrac will be glad if you go.”

“I’m sure he will,” Marius mutters. “Do you know who all is racing?”

“Bahorel, Feuilly… Enjolras, of course,” Cosette says. “Do you know if Grantaire will?”

Marius shakes his head. “He was going to,” he says. “His horse took a bite out of him and went running right for the water. He’s fine, he’ll ride next year, but not now.”

“What about Bossuet?”

Marius shakes his head again. “His horse took a flying leap off one of the cliffs. He got off just in time.” He looks past Cosette and smiles. “Oh,” he says. “And Éponine is racing, of course.”

Cosette turns.

Éponine is striding down the street, dressed like a man. She keeps her hair short all year, which has always emphasized the sharp angles of her face, but this close to the races she wears trousers like any farm boy. Behind her skips her younger sister, Azelma.

Marius puts his hands around his mouth. “Éponine!”

She sees them and changes course, with Azelma trailing behind. “Afternoon,” she says, once she reaches the bookstore. Her eyes are large and dark. “What’s the news?”

“We’re talking about who’s racing,” Cosette says, giving her an easy smile. “Marius was saying that both Grantaire and Bossuet lost their horses.”

“They did,” Éponine says. “It’s a shame. Grantaire’s a good rider—damn near won last year.”

“Do you know of anyone else?” Marius asks.

Éponine tips her head to one side. “Montparnasse hauled some terrible thing out of the water that he’s been keeping secret,” she says. “Monster of a horse, huge, completely black. I wouldn’t go within a foot of it, and I’m surprised he’s not so light that it can’t just buck him off.”

“Anyone else?”

“All of the regulars. Including your father, Cosette.”

She nods. Pride and concern war in her. Her father is a good rider, but he also is among the oldest. Most men retire long before they reach her father’s age.

Azelma tugs on the sleeve of Éponine’s shirt. “I want to go to the bakery.”

“Then go, you don’t need my permission,” Éponine says, but she undermines her impatient tone by flipping her little sister a coin. Azelma catches it, gives Cosette a mocking salute, and skips across the street.

“Where’s Gavroche?” Marius asks.

Éponine gives a weary smile. “Down on the beach, trying to get himself killed.” She runs her hand back through her hair. “All bets are off once he’s old enough to race, he’s as mad as the horses are.”

“He’s got a ways to go,” Marius says. “He’ll mellow out.”

Privately, Cosette disagrees. It doesn’t seem to her like anything will ever douse Gavroche’s spark.

“I have to get going,” Marius adds, growing more somber. “My grandfather is expecting me at home.” He gives Éponine a nod and presses a fond kiss to Cosette’s cheek. “Say hello to your father,” he tells her. “And good luck, Éponine, if I don’t see you.”

Éponine touches her fingers to her temple in acknowledgment. She and Cosette both turn to watch him walk down the street with his hands in his pockets.

Cosette doesn’t look at Éponine as she says, “I seem to have lost my handkerchief. Will you help me look for it?”

“Of course,” Éponine says, in the same measured tone. They amble up the street together, side by side, not touching.

Just past the feed store is a very small, neat alley. The structure of the storefront makes it possible to press against the building without being seen by any passers-by on the street. It is there, in the small niche of warm brick, that Éponine backs Cosette up against the wall and kisses her.

Cosette buries her fingers in Éponine’s short, dark hair and kisses back with all her might. After a moment Éponine moves to kiss her neck and Cosette tips her head back, smiling. “You’re a terror,” she says as quietly as she can manage. “You could have kissed me any time the other day, but instead you decide to tempt me in the middle of the street?”

“I had a horse to worry about,” Éponine says. “You deserve my full attention.” 

Cosette laughs breathlessly and kisses Éponine again, sweet and slow. She can feel Éponine’s palms on her waist, holding her back where no one can see her. Éponine’s mouth is so soft. So many pieces of her are composed of hard edges and weathered-down rawness—the product of her father’s malice, her mother’s disinterest—but even despite them Éponine manages to remain warm and kind under Cosette’s hands.

It hurts a little, to only have her in secret. It hurts to remember that knife’s edge that Éponine walks every day she works with the _capaill._ Cosette just kisses her harder.

“Promise me you’ll be careful,” she whispers, when at last there is space between them again. 

Éponine just closes her eyes and gives Cosette a gentle kiss on the forehead.

*

The first of November dawns gray and cold. Cosette wakes early and finds her father already sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of tea that has long gone cold. She hesitates before going to put her hand on his shoulder.

He starts slightly, then looks up and gives her a smile. His fingers find hers. They hold onto each other for a long moment.

It isn’t long before he and Cosette are entering the barn and to fetch Champmathieu. The other horses shuffle in their stalls, restless. Cosette’s father is wary, and tells her to stay well back, but Cosette isn’t afraid. She walks beside her father sedately as they lead the eager _capaill_ out of the barn and along the path that leads to the main road.

Cosette is dressed in her warmest and finest clothes, bright enough that she won’t blend into the churning steel waves or the flat, pale sand. Her father is wearing a long white shirt. His jacket is slung over his arm, though the air must be cold against his skin. He looks awake, alert, excited despite himself.

“Did you eat anything?” Cosette asks. He doesn’t seem to hear her.

A figure is waiting for them on the main road. Cosette recognizes Javert by his posture alone. Her father sees him too, but he does not pause or slow down.

“Good morning,” he says, once they are close enough to be heard.

Javert’s expression is unfathomable. “I thought I would walk with you,” he says. “Good morning, Miss Cosette.”

“Good morning.”

*

(Cosette’s father is her father in every way except for blood.

She doesn’t remember her mother. What she remembers is being raised on the Thenardier farm, more a servant than a stable hand, but still somewhere between the two and entirely too young for it. She wasn’t allowed near the horses—they were far too precious, and vicious—but she was expected to help keep their stalls clean and fetch water.

The happiest day of her life was when her father and Javert had come, saying that there had been a mistake, that the Thenardier farm wasn’t Cosette’s home and she needed to leave. Cosette’s father had been a stranger to her, but he had a kind face, and when he knelt to speak to her she had felt her shyness melt away like frost beneath the sun.

Javert had almost fought Thenardier himself in the yard; the Thenardiers didn’t want to let Cosette go. Cosette’s father had intervened before it came to blows, but she always remembered that tense morning, the billowing clouds of cold breath, the way that Azelma and Gavroche had stared as Cosette was carried away in her father’s arms. Away from the only home she had ever known. Away from the unhappiest place she had ever been.

There were years when Cosette could not return to the Thenardier farm. Years where she remembered Gavroche, Azelma, and Éponine with a sort of fearful curiosity, unsure if they had grown up in the same manner as their parents. She avoided them at school. She kept her eyes down when she passed them in the street. She wondered how whole her memories were, and how much she trusted herself.

Then, one afternoon when she was thirteen, she had been picking wildflowers in the meadow above the cliff and had almost gotten killed when Éponine came out of nowhere, riding a _capall_ with rolling eyes. Cosette had thrown up her arms, dropping all her flowers, and closed her eyes with all her might. The horse had let out a terrifying noise and reared back, dumping Éponine from its back before taking off back across the meadow.

When Cosette opened her eyes again, all she had seen was Éponine, lying on her side in the grass with the wind knocked out of her.

“I’m so sorry!” Cosette had cried, rushing to her.

Éponine had sat up and waved off Cosette’s worrisome hands. “You’re fine,” she had said, once she could speak again. “I told my father she was too wild to ride, anyway—she was fighting me the whole way here.”

Cosette had looked around the meadow. By that point the horse had made it all the way to the cliff and was pacing along the edge, stamping its feet. “Will she jump?” she asked curiously. She had heard of horses, half-wild with their need to return to the water, running straight off the cliffs and plunging into the waves below.

“She might.” Éponine stood up, then, and fixed Cosette with her dark eyes. “I’m sorry to have startled you,” she said. Even at thirteen she had been remarkably composed. Cosette had felt her face flushing.

“It’s fine,” she had said. She tucked her untidy hair back behind her ears. Éponine’s eyes had still been on her face, careful and calm. “No harm done.”)

*

Most of the town is already on the beach when Cosette, Valjean, and Javert arrive. The horses and their riders are in the surf, struggling, and the witnesses are gathered at the base of the cliffs. Cosette turns to her father, with the hulking figure of Champmathieu just over his shoulder. The wind is whipping long blond tendrils of hair around Cosette’s face, but she can’t bring herself to brush them back. “Good luck,” she says. 

He presses her shoulder with his free hand and places a kiss on the top of her head. Then he turns to go.

Javert stops him. “Good luck, Valjean,” he says. Cosette’s father nods. The excitement and apprehension are visible on his face. He stays there for a moment, holding Javert’s gaze, before turning to lead Champmathieu down to the beach to where the other riders are waiting.

Javert looks down at Cosette. “I’m going to find my friends,” she says immediately, then turns and weaves her way through the crowd to look for Marius.

Marius is sitting on a rock, a ways apart from everyone else. His face is pale. Cosette can see his grandfather, shaking hands with the more well-dressed men in the crowd, but she skirts them all to go sit on the rocks with her friend. “Are you doing all right?”

“Courfeyrac must be freezing,” Marius says. He has his eyes on the riders. “The jackets they wear are so thin.”

Cosette presses her arm against his and looks too.

The first person she sees is Enjolras, astride a giant red horse. Cosette doesn’t know its name. She can see the bright gold of his hair above its scarlet coat, both of them too vibrant for the muted color of the beach and the water. She can see Grantaire, too, part of the watching crowd. His dark curls are riotous in the wind and his face is turned away from Cosette.

“Enjolras’s horse is a favorite for the betting,” Marius says in Cosette’s ear. “He’s half-mad, they say. Almost impossible to tame.”

She can believe it. “Who do you think will win?” she asks him. She keeps searching the riders for a glimpse of Éponine, or her father.

He frowns. “Honestly, Cosette,” he says, “I’m not sure. This is a volatile year.”

“As volatile as the sea,” comes a new voice. Grantaire is suddenly there at Marius’s shoulder. “I’m surprised to see you on the beach, Pontmercy,” he adds, ruffling Marius’s hair. One of his hands is wrapped in a clean white bandage.

Marius shoves him off and hopelessly tries to comb his wavy hair back down with his fingers. “I figured it was time,” he says. “Plus Cosette didn’t want to come alone.”

Grantaire gives Cosette a warm smile. “I’ll have to thank you, then,” he says. “You’ve succeeded where many of us have failed—I had a bet with Bossuet on whether or not one of us could tempt young Pontmercy to watch the races today.”

“Did you bet for Marius, or against him?” Cosette asks, ignoring Marius’s indignant expression.

Grantaire just grins. “Let’s just say I’ll buy you a drink sometime, if you want it. To show my gratitude.”

Cosette laughs.

“There goes Montparnasse,” Marius says suddenly. His eyes are focused over Cosette’s shoulder; she and Grantaire both turn around.

Grantaire whistles. Cosette gives an incredulous laugh. “Can he even get on that thing?” she asks, only half-believing her eyes.

Éponine had said that Montparnasse had a huge black horse but Cosette was in no way prepared for the reality of it. It was as though the deepest fathoms of the ocean had conspired to sculpt an animal out of pure shadow and salt. The horse was massive, and, judging by the way it tossed its head, half-mad with the desire to run to the water. Montparnasse already looked like he was having a hard time keeping it still.

“It’s going to kill him,” Grantaire says, appalled.

“Him or someone else,” Cosette says darkly. She watches as Montparnasse approaches the other riders. 

“I feel bad for them sometimes,” Grantaire says.

Marius frowns at him. “For whom?”

“The horses,” he clarifies. He waves one hand at the ocean. “To be so close to what you want, and not be able to have it. To be constantly reaching.” He sighs and looks further down the beach. 

Cosette looks too, finally locating Éponine’s dark head among the other horses and riders. Not far from her, Cosette’s father is standing with his face pressed closed to the side of Champmathieu’s broad head. His eyes are closed; it looks like he’s murmuring to his horse, quietly. The whole scene sings with tension.

Marius claps Grantaire on the shoulder. He doesn’t say anything.

A call goes up the beach. The riders begin corralling their horses to the starting line.

“Look alive,” Grantaire mutters. “They’re about to start.”

Marius puts his arm around Cosette’s shoulder and navigates through the crowd with her, until they’ve found a point on the sand with a better view.

*

(“What are you going to do if you win?”

They had been sitting beneath a tree on top of one of the island’s cliffs, sharing an apple and looking out at the water. Éponine had been wearing a dark green shirt that looked so soft that Cosette had wanted to bury her face in it. Press her mouth to Éponine’s shoulder and get her fingers all knotted in the hem. Éponine looked back at her like she wanted Cosette to do it, too.

“If I win the races?” Éponine had laughed, taken a bite of the apple, and handed it over. “Leave my father’s farm.”

“Leave the island?” Cosette asked carefully.

“No,” Éponine said. “No, not that.” She’d given Cosette a crooked smile. 

Cosette took her own bite of the apple and handed it back. “Good,” she said. The word had almost been lost in the sound of the wind. But she knew Éponine heard her, because of the look in her eyes.)

*

The race starts. Cosette’s heart jumps.

The horses go pounding down the beach.

**Author's Note:**

> read the scorpio races! it's great!
> 
> i am on tumblr as [kvothes.](http://kvothes.tumblr.com/tagged/x) come and say hello!


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